


Our Side Won

by LightningNymph



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-12
Updated: 2012-12-12
Packaged: 2017-11-20 23:17:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/590787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LightningNymph/pseuds/LightningNymph
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Crowley hasn’t spoken much of what happened – for him. The one time Aziraphale had tried to ask, he’d muttered something like ‘our side won’ and then ‘prisoners’ and then ‘executions’ and then ’ wait, that looked like a squirrel, did you see it, I’m sure it was a squirrel’, and Aziraphale had left it at that."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Our Side Won

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hekateras](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hekateras/gifts).
  * Inspired by [And So We Come Full Circle (Illustrated)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/423386) by [Hekateras](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hekateras/pseuds/Hekateras). 



> Originally posted on Tumblr, reposting it here.

Crowley had seen many, many wars over the course of several millennia. Ones that started for good reasons. Ones that started for bad reasons. Ones that basically boiled down to “They started it!”. The War to End All Wars and the one that resulted from it two decades later. Even the one about the pig.

For most of history, when a certain type of humans won the big one, the battle that decided the war, the group that would be vindicated by history had the tendency to set an example to whichever country or empire lost by executing the leaders. Apparently some other demon had also witnessed this and passed the idea on until the Fallen were, for once, in agreement about a plan, proving for once and for all what Crowley already knew — that sometimes, humans were far, far worse than demons.

Uriel had been a small and waifish thing, looking not at all like the blazing archangel who severed each and every one of them from the Presence all that time ago. Most of the Fallen were still cheering while someone dragged the thin body with mangled wings out of the way, relishing the feeling of long-overdue revenge. Crowley wanted to leave, wait for the inevitable summons somewhere far away, but of course things were never, ever as simple as that, not when the universe ( _not Him, **never** Him_ ) could take another pot shot. Crowley gripped his cursed sword tighter to stop his hand from shaking.

Aziraphale was in front of him, on his knees after his leg had doubled up, unable to support his weight. Seven thousand years of history was summed up in a single look when his grey eyes met yellow ones.

Crowley didn’t say, “ _You could still Fall._ ”

Crowley didn’t say, “ _It was good while it lasted._ ”

Crowley didn’t say, “ _Goodbye._ ” He grabbed the sword with both hands and swung it…

* * *

_It’s been about about three months since they got to this planet, as far as Crowley can tell, when Aziraphale goes very, very still one evening, holding the cup of tea in his hands so tightly that by all means, it should have shattered. Crowley recognises the look in his eyes and busies himself with poking at their improvised fire with a stick to keep it going._

_“Crowley?”_

_“Yeah?” Crowley replies, unsettled. Usually when Aziraphale gets like this, he just needs to be left alone for a while, to shove whatver he’s thinking of back into his memory by force and get on with life. He’s never asked Crowley anything before._

_“Back then… after the Apocalypse…” Aziraphale hesitates, but pushes on regardless. “When everything happened, what happened to you?”_

_Crowley goes just as still as the angel, staring into the flames._

Flying up to Heaven and taking over again, Forgiveness, a loss of memory, a feeling something was horribly wrong, realising what that was, a War in Heaven, Falling, and a demon who looked so familiar it ached except for his eyes, which were a vivid scarlet instead of grey…

_When Crowley answers, it’s only after he’s reasonably sure he’s not going to scream. He doesn’t give Aziraphale anything to go on except muttering something about “our side won” before adding the words “prisoners” and “executions”, and even then he chooses the easy way out of this conversation by claiming, “Wait, that looked like a squirrel, did you see it, I’m sure it was a squirrel”._

_Aziraphale did not ask him again._


End file.
